Constructions: the history of representation of (Afrikaans) whiteness in a selection of photographs...

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RESEARCH PROPOSAL by DESRÉ BARNARD Submitted for the degree Magister Artium July 2013

Transcript of Constructions: the history of representation of (Afrikaans) whiteness in a selection of photographs...

RESEARCH PROPOSAL

by

DESRÉ BARNARD

Submitted for the degree

Magister Artium

July 2013

i

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

1. Proposed Title ....................................................................................................... 1

2. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1 3. Aims and research problems ................................................................................. 4 4. Literature review .................................................................................................... 6

4.1 History of photography in South Africa ............................................................ 6 4.2 Photography .................................................................................................... 7 4.3 Whiteness studies ........................................................................................... 7

5. Theoretical framework ......................................................................................... 13

6. Research methodology ........................................................................................ 14

7. Preliminary outline of chapters ............................................................................ 15 SOURCES CONSULTED ............................................................................................. 17

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1. Proposed Title

Constructions: the history of representation of (Afrikaans) whiteness in a selection

of photographs from 1910 to contemporary South Africa.

2. Introduction

International whiteness studies, which is loosely termed critical whiteness studies,

operates to identify and make visible an invisible whiteness which functions at the

level of thought and practice (Dyer 1988, 1997). However, even as a nascent

discipline, theorists working with South African whiteness studies have identified

differences in theoretical approach from international academia. For example,

whiteness in South Africa is visible and does not operate purely at the levels of

thought and practice and is in fact historically and acutely visible (Van der Watt

2005:121; Steyn 2012:9; Leonard and Conway 2012:[sp]). Global whiteness

studies certainly offers historical and methodological frameworks in which to situate

and interrogate white South African subjectivities, but South Africa‟s historical,

economic and socio-political contexts call for a different approach in discourse.

This study seeks to situate itself within the context of whiteness studies in South

Africa, and to investigate the historical construction and representation of

(Afrikaans) whiteness in a selection of photographic images from several

photographers. The list preliminarily includes: Nat Farbman, Grey Villet, Margaret

Bourke-White and Constance Stuart Larrabee; contemporary photographers such

as Lesley Lawson, Roger Ballen, David Goldblatt, Michael Meyersfeld and most

recently Nadine Hutton, Roelof van Wyk, Ross Garrett and Pieter Hugo.

This study contributes to the field of Visual Culture as it considers the visual

representation of whiteness in a variety of eras in South African history. In order to

trace the changing representation of whiteness in South Africa, consideration will

be given to early settler images of whiteness; however, these will not form part of

the main focus – rather, these images will form the background for the construction

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of Afrikaans identity. I aim to consider the construction of Afrikaans whiteness and

the associated identities. As such, I will attempt to define categories into which

each period of representation will fall, and these are categories defined to coincide

with major historical and political events. The first category will include images from

1910 following the declaration of the Union of South Africa, which will include

images up to approximately 1948, when the National Party assumed power. The

second category will include images from 1948 until approximately 1976, a period

which includes the height of apartheid and, eventually, the beginning of the decline

of the apartheid regime following the Sharpeville Massacre (1960) and the Soweto

Uprisings (1976) and the associated international attention and intensified

sanctions against South Africa. The third period will include images from 1976 until

approximately 1994, a period wherein the African National Congress was

unbanned, Nelson Mandela was released from prison, and the ANC assumed

majority rule in the first democratic elections. The final category will comprise of

images from 1994 until contemporary representations. Through Loren Kruger‟s

(2001:225) postulation of “post-anti-apartheid” and “postapartheid”, I will attempt to

show that that in the last two categories, a marked difference in subject matter can

be seen. Kruger (2001:225) argues that

“Post-anti-apartheid” may more accurately characterize cultural life in the 1990s than the “postapartheid” political dispensation, because it reflects uncertainty about alliances as against the certain enemies of the anti-apartheid era, and because it allows us to include the early 1990s (after the release of Nelson Mandela but before his inauguration in 1994) in the period of demographic, economic, and cultural change...that began in the late 1980s and continues today.

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Federica Angelucci (2012:[sp]) defines these periods via Cirjac Rassool‟s1 conception as:

"Post anti-apartheid photography" is as diverse and complex as the state of ambiguity that has created the premises for its development. A wide range of voices and languages are manifest in the practice of young photographers, regardless of their subject matter. Social commentary - often linked to first-hand experience - overlaps with a more intimate use of the medium; boundaries between the supposedly neutral documentary approach and the art practice are extremely fluid. Enquiries on class, race, identity, are imbued with irony and lyricism.

Following this, my research will attempt to show the cultural changes alluded to by

Kruger have culminated in a new kind of (hybridised) whiteness, developed under

what Julie Reid (2012:45) terms a process of “remythologisation” of whiteness. 2

These images are produced within a discipline which, as I will argue, has moved

from the politically and ideologically charged images of the apartheid propaganda,

to the anti-apartheid struggle and finally to contemporary images which tackle class

and gender distinction in a fashion vastly different from preceding decades.

Contemporary society is saturated with images in a variety of forms and theorists

Gillian Rose (2012) and Stuart Hall (1997, 2006) argue there is importance in the

study of images in contemporary culture. Rose (2012:15-16) argues that the study

of images is of significance owing not only to their pervasive existence in

contemporary culture, but as ideologically charged conveyors of meaning, social

difference, resistance and power relations. Similarly, in the video interview

Representation & the Media, Hall (2006) postulates that in the modern world,

whether they are moving or still, images “seem to have become the privileged sign

1 Rassool‟s concept of post-anti-apartheid was discussed at the Bonani Conference held in Cape

Town in August 2010.

2 Hybridised whiteness can be clearly demonstrated in the rap-rave collective, Die Antwoord. Their

appropriation of a variety of cultures has been widely discussed. See Marx and Milton (2001); Du Preez (2011); Haupt (2012).

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of late modern culture ... the saturating medium world wide”. Hall (1997:13-74)

argues that images are never without meaning, and that meaning is produced

through a system of codes which are constructed by ideologies. However, Hall

(1997:21) argues that meaning is not inherent, and the interpretation of images

depends on the viewer‟s interaction with the image. Thus meaning can never be

fixed, nor is it ever inherent. It is through a process of interrogation via semiotics,

Hall (1997:15) argues, that viewers come to understand images and how they

operate in an attempt to produce meaning. With these theorisations in mind, this

study will attempt to contribute to the discourses surrounding visual representation

in the media and contemporary culture of South Africa.

3. Aims and research problems

The study of the representation of whiteness is of importance to South African

Visual Culture Studies owing to the recent focus on the subject of changing

subjectivities and construction of white identities in postapartheid South Africa. The

discourse has been a focus of in variety of disciplines ranging from diasporic

politics and history, to music, gender studies and philosophy.3 This study aims to

contribute to the field of whiteness studies in South Africa by offering a historical

overview and semiotic investigation into the construction of Afrikaans whiteness in

several different periods in South African history. This study will consider Afrikaans

whiteness over whiteness in general owing to the emphasis and importance placed

on Afrikaans identity during South African history.

This study will consider the manner in which the politics of Afrikaans whiteness and

identities are able to be recorded, contested, subjected to criticism and, ultimately,

undermined through the practice of photography. I will consider how images are

3See Ratele (2009); West (2010); Reid (2012); Scott (2012); Ballantine (2012); Huynh (2012);

Kostopoulos (2013); Vice (2012) Hunter (2013); Matthews (2013); Leonard and Conway (2013); van Niekerk (2013); Alberts (2013); Blaser (2013); Phiri (2013); Leonard (2013).

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able to function as documentary, whether they are photojournalistic in nature, or

stylised and conceptual, as well as able to express not only emotions, but political,

cultural, class and gender constructions.

In the “postapartheid” images, this study will consider the significance of a

changing focus of subjects, as well as the representation of the myth, or rather,

counter myth of whiteness.4 Post-anti-apartheid, as this study endeavours to show,

is a period in which photographers no longer had the extremely photojournalistic

subject matter of the antiapartheid period, and, as such, turned to different subject

matter including the day-to-day lives of ordinary South Africans. Neatly coinciding

with the advent of democracy in South Africa was the publication of Roger Ballen‟s

book, Platteland (1994). Ballen, along with David Goldblatt, were some of the first

photographers who brought images of poor whites to the public. The image of the

poor white is a powerful indication of the remythologisation of the Afrikaans identity

in light of the propagated image of whites by the apartheid regime. It is this counter

myth of whiteness which exposed whites which do not conform to Dyer‟s (1997)

discussion on the representation of whites as clean, pure and moral – which is

particularly true in the contemporary images by Ballen and Goldblatt in which the

image of whiteness as privileged and the “explicit ideal” (Dyer 1997:70-81) are

undermined. Following this, a trend can be seen developing out of the embracing

of whiteness as unclean, particularly in music acts such as Jack Parow and Die

Antwoord. I will attempt to show how contemporary images of Afrikaans whites

have developed out of a “remythologisation” (Reid 2012:45) of Afrikaner identity.

4 Julie Reid (2012:45) examines the construction of good/bad white collective identities in films of

the postapartheid area. She argues that characters in certain films engage in constructing a new myth of South African whiteness, a counter myth, or as she terms it, a “remythologisation” of white identities.

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4. Literature review

4.1 History of photography in South Africa

Peter Metelerkamp‟s essay Considering Coloniality in South African Photography

(2003) traces the history of photographic images in South Africa. Metelerkamp

questions social assumptions and subject positions in light of post-colonial studies

via a sample of images from several different categories of photography which he

states form part of a “single discursive complex around how South Africa has been

visually imagined” (2003:3). These categories are: the popular; the serious; the

amateur; and the professional. He places emphasis on how photographic imagery

from South Africa may be thought of politically and how this interpretation is

enriched with what Metelerkamp (2003:3) calls “coloniality”, a term he uses to

differentiate between the “legal and material states of colonisation and the more

shadowy conditions which operate around those differentials of power which have

not arisen organically within a social group, but which involve relatively discrete

groups separated by geography, race, or language”. Metelerkamp traces the

history of photography from the first known “photographic” images in the form of

the daguerreotype by E. Thiesson in 1845, to contemporary photographers such as

Graeme Williams and Peter Magubane amongst others. Metelerkamp (2003:24)

questions the change in styles and subjects of photography in contemporary South

Africa by arguing that postapartheid South Africa‟s re-incorporation into the

international arena has lead to a “rapid ascendancy in the global art market”.

Metelerkamp (2003:24-5) points out that much of the imagery being produced in

contemporary South Africa has nothing particularly South African about it, and

these images, with their aesthetics of internationalism, have the ability to “blend

seamlessly into the reserved and straight-laced world of prestigious European art”.

It is with this favourability in the international market that contemporary

photographers have been able to break away from the international expectation of

South African images (such as those of the antiapartheid struggle), and are able to

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begin exploring a wider range of subjects. This shift in expectation will be

considered in my argument in the change from antiapartheid, to post-anti-apartheid

and finally to the contemporary postapartheid South Africa.

4.2 Photography

There has been significant academic research into photography,5 with much

discourse focusing on the „truth‟ or the ability to represent the „truth‟ through the

medium of photography. It is outside of the scope of this study to engage in the

theoretical underpinnings surrounding the “truth claim” (Gunning 2004:42), the

complexity of the “integral realism” and the ontology of the photographic image

(Bazin [1945] 1971:124; [1958] 1960:4-9), but it would be superficial not to allude

to the complexities of the representability of nature in the photographic discipline.

4.3 Whiteness studies

Whiteness and white trash studies have been extensively unpacked in American

literature,6 with particular focus given to notions of whiteness and poverty.

Richard Dyer‟s (1988) essay White interrogates the films Jezebel (Wyler 1938),

Simba (Hurst 1955) and Night of the Living Dead (Romero 1969) in order to show

the contestation of whiteness. Dyer (1988) argues that whiteness is made visible

only when in contrast to blackness, and that the films relate to situations where

white people are materially dependent on black people, whilst maintaining power

over them. The narratives are mainly organised around rigid binaries of

white/black, modernity/backwardness, order/irrationality and stability/violence (Dyer

1988:48). According to Dyer (1988:61) these films contest whiteness by upsetting

5See Bazin and Gray (1946, 1960); Sontag (1973, 1977); Barthes (1980, 1981); Levinson (1997);

Wells (2003); Gunning (2004); Mirzoeff (2009). 6See see Oliver (2002); Watts (2005); Brattain (2006); Twine and Steinbugler (2006).

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the white/black, good/bad, light/darkness binaries that are antinomies of Western

culture. Dyer‟s (1988) discussion highlights the contestation of whiteness that has

been present for many years, arguing that whiteness is no longer invisible, and no

longer the default position.

Dyer‟s (1997) book entitled White continues the interrogation of the representation

of white people in (white) Western culture, with particular focus on film and

photography, but makes reference to film posters, oil paintings as well as

magazine adverts and illustrations. In an attempt to deconstruct white hegemony

by “making whiteness strange” (Dyer 1997:4), Dyer (1997) questions the

simultaneous ubiquity and invisibility of whiteness, ideologically constructed over

centuries. Dyer (1997) considers whiteness as no longer invisible but argues that

white people remain un-raced in opposition to non-white people.

bell hooks ([sa]), in her criticism of whiteness, maintains that there exists an

interconnectedness of racism, sexism and capitalism in systems of oppression and

class domination. In the video interview Cultural Criticism and Transformation,

hooks ([sa]) argues that the representation of blackness in contemporary popular

culture should be viewed in terms of “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy”.

Through the term “white supremacists capital patriarchy”, hooks ([sa]) attempts to

create a discourse through which all cultural products should be viewed. hooks

([sa]) argues that the term is meant to emphasise the interlocking systems of

domination which inform how we function and understand in daily life. “White

supremacists capitalist patriarchy” is how hooks ([sa]) argues one can consider not

only the implications of representation of women and of blackness, but also how to

consider internalised racism, such as black on black violence. Popular culture and

cultural products (such as films) are a prime mode of pedagogy and, according to

hooks ([sa]), are sites which deserves consideration through the lens of “white

supremacist capitalist patriarchy”. However, whilst this study will reflect on these

assertions, it will not fully engage with hook‟s ([sa]) concepts as she is primarily

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concerned with the representation of females and black people, whereas this study

will exclusively investigate the representation of white people.

In South African academic literature, whiteness studies have been unpacked in

terms of Afrikaans bands and zef 7 by authors such as Marx and Milton (2011) in

their investigation of the reconfiguration of Afrikaans identities, mediated through

zef. Marx and Milton (2011) argue that zef artefacts articulate a perceived marginal

and liminal experience of white Afrikaans youths in South Africa. Through an

overview of the evolution of Afrikaans music, Marx and Milton (2011) arrive at

musicians such as Karen Zoid, Fokofpolisiekar, Jack Parow, and Die Antwoord.

These former two artists, Marx and Milton (2011) argue, adopt zef culture in a

deconstructive attempt to redefine ideas about whiteness and being Afrikaans.

Jack Parow and Die Antwoord construct a “bastardised whiteness” (Marx and

Milton 2011:740) through a hybridity of cultures, emphasising Hall‟s notion of “new

ethnicities” (Marx and Milton 2011:743) which are increasingly disenchanted with

politics and white guilt and have thus turned to creating new identities.

Liese van der Watt‟s (2005) investigation of postapartheid South African popular

culture negotiates the changing notions of whiteness and masculinity. Van der Watt

(2005) traces international theories of whiteness as normative, non-raced and

invisible, but contends that South Africa presents exceptions to this invisibility

(2005:121). Van der Watt (2005:122) argues that the making visible of whiteness in

South Africa has been repeatedly covered in analyses and in histories of apartheid

and colonial settlement. She contends that whiteness has been made strange and

has been contested throughout the years of the antiapartheid struggle. Van der

7 Zef is a contraction of the name of a popular Ford, the Zephyr, a car owned by many working-

class people from the East and West Rand of Johannesburg. The term zef became associated with common trashy white people, but after South African rap-rave sensation Die Antwoord appropriated the term, it has become trendy to be zef.

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Watt (2005:129) concludes that the hypervisibility of whiteness in South Africa is in

crisis under the new democratic dispensation, as well as it being a position that has

long been contested. Van der Watt‟s (2005) investigation suggests that white

heteronormative masculinity as been dethroned, but that masculinity is itself a

performance which is not inherent. I will use Reid‟s concept of the

remythologisation in order to interrogate contemporary representations of white

Afrikaners

Julie Reid (2012:45) examines the construction of good/bad white collective

identities in films of the postapartheid area, with specific focus on the creation of

myth and counter myth or “remythologisation” of white identities. These apartheid

inscriptions of whiteness, Reid (2012:49) argues, had to be reconfigured both

locally and internationally. Through an investigation of films – in the genre which

Reid (2012:45) terms postapartheid history films – she highlights the difference

between the two categories of white characters: good and bad white perpetrators.

These two categories are problematised, Reid (2012:56) suggests, when the new

white identity construction is broached. Reid (2012:57-58) argues that this could

suggest a new identity under construction, noting that the myth of the good white

and bad white perpetrator is currently in flux. Reid (2012:59) suggests that this flux

indicates a remythologisation in the mythic narrative of South African postapartheid

whiteness.

WHITEWASHI was a series of workshops convened by the Research Centre,

Visual Identities in Art and Design (VIAD) at the University of Johannesburg. The

series contributed towards the impetus for academic study in the field of whiteness

studies and yielded insightful and important prospects in terms of considering the

construction of whiteness in South Africa. The following papers were presented at

the workshops held in March 2013.

Candess Kostopoulos (2013:[sp]) argues that critical whiteness studies stresses

the notion of whiteness as “invisible”, yet in Africa, whites are mostly aware of their

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whiteness. Kostopoulos (2013:[sp]) argues that in South Africa, whites are acutely

aware of their whiteness owing to the “overt racialisation” of the apartheid regime,

and the fact that whites are an ethnic minority in South Africa. However, whites in

Africa share the characteristics of whiteness, especially in relation to normativity, or

“sets of normativities” (Kostopoulos 2013:[sp]). Kostopoulos (2013:[sp]) adopts a

philosophical stance regarding whether racial awareness and the awareness of

being an ethnic minority influence the cultural imaginary. Kostopoulos (2013:[sp])

argues that South African whites differ from their “western” counterparts insofar as

they are aware of their whiteness, but share with these “western” counterparts the

“normalisation and idealisation of whiteness as a set of norms”. It is this awareness

of whiteness coupled with the normalisation thereof that Kostopoulos (2013)

interrogates. She argues that “South African whites‟ acute awareness of

themselves as an ethnic minority leads to an imaginative construal of social

fragility, which – in itself – leads to peculiar „failures‟ of social imagination amongst

whites”. It is these failures that produce a Kantian sublimity owing to the fact that

“whites continue to imagine themselves as a group that has a superior rational

nature”. Kostopoulos (2013:[sp]) argues that a “sublime whiteness” lends itself

“both to awareness and the fears and insecurities which come with it and to

normative superiority”. This study will attempt to illustrate that these norms have

been subverted in contemporary images, and therefore may be considered as a

visual cue of the failures of the white social imagination as well as the subversion if

the imagined superior rational nature (as established through my investigation of

the history of representation).

Pauline Leonard and Daniel Conway (2013) also note that South African whiteness

studies encompasses discourses that recognise whiteness in South Africa as

different from Western contexts. Salusbury and Foster (in Leonard and Conway

2013:[sp]) state that South African whiteness is more “obvious in its potency: self-

conscious rather than deliberately obscured, and accepted rather than veiled as a

site of privilege”. This study will draw on the fact that whiteness studies in South

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Africa has to be treated differently from theories in Western academia based on the

fact that whiteness in South Africa is historically acutely visible. However, the

representation of whiteness in images can be treated in a uniquely South African

and postcolonial way. The changing restrictions within the media during and after

apartheid have brought interesting shifts in representation: moving away from the

apartheid white superiority image – whiteness as the “explicit ideal” (Dyer 1997:70)

– to where whiteness has come to represent a counter-myth through a process of

reymthologisation.

Jessica Lindiwe Draper (2013) discusses South African whiteness in terms of white

South African artists. Draper (2013:[sp]) questions how ignoring whiteness would

perpetuate the invisible advantage that the white artist holds, but acknowledging it

thereby reifies a “claim to apartheid‟s visible advantages”. Draper (2013:[sp]) also

notes that whereas in majority-white societies, ideologies of whiteness “exist at an

unconscious level” it was the work of the apartheid regime to make everyone

acutely aware of whiteness via signifiers such as “whites only” signage. Draper

(2013) thus questions – if whiteness studies in the Northern hemisphere functions

to make whiteness explicit in order to confront and subvert it – how will South

African whiteness studies confront whiteness when it is so visible already in the

South African context. Draper (2013:[sp]) argues that stereotypes of African art

provided by western classifications, as well as documentary style photography

practiced during apartheid, have “generated and expectation on the part of the

international (and local) art markets of seeing these images reproduced”,

expectations which she argues create and are created from false traditions. Draper

(2013) posits that whiteness has contributed to the pressure to conform to these

stereotypes and false traditions which are now firmly established and function as

valid. As such, this study will consider the expectations in the representation of

Afrikaner whiteness and how these have changed informed by the zeitgeist in

which they are found.

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Stacey Vorster and Matthew Kay (2013) engage in a joint creative research project

in order to investigate the “act of looking through hetero-normative eyes”, which is

informed by theories of the colonial gaze. Kay is a white male from a middle class

English speaking background, and as a photographer, Vorster and Kay (2013)

used Kay‟s images as a starting point for an investigation into how images can

displace, disrupt and/or maintain the colonial gaze. The intended outcome of the

project was to “interrogate deeper experiences of hetero-normativity in the

postcolonial setting of South Africa” (Vorster and Kay 2013:[sp]). They situate their

investigation in the premise that there exists a complexity of the South African

experience of looking at, talking about and representing the Other. Vorster and Kay

(2013:[sp]) note that photographers such as Roger Ballen, Peter Hugo and Mikhail

Subotzky have essentially created a style of representation where the Other – or a

version of the self as the Other – has been “further alienated, estranged and

exoticised”. Vorster and Kay (2013:[sp]) investigate how the act of looking and

representing are highly politicised, and question the “vacuum in dialogue”

surrounding who may/can speak for/about whom. This study aims to investigate

the contemporary representation of the Other (perhaps an Other-white) in the

“further alienated, estranged and exoticised” style which Vorster and Kay

(2013:[sp]) discuss.

5. Theoretical framework

This study will attempt to map the changing representation of whiteness in South

Africa, with specific focus on Afrikaans identity. As such, I will assume a

postmodern paradigm involving a formalist semiotic investigation of images,

informed by the theoretical underpinnings of whiteness studies. I will consider the

changing political and social understandings and implications of whiteness and the

propaganda surrounding the representation of whiteness in different periods in

South African history.

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6. Research methodology

This study will employ a qualitative semiotic analysis as the main methodological

tool in the analysis of the selected images, and will draw upon discourses and

theories surrounding whiteness studies in South Africa. The research methodology

will consist of a literature review, which will enable me to draw from and build upon

existing literature surrounding whiteness studies, and will also assist in the period

specific understanding of images and perceived identities. Following this, the study

will progress to an in-depth semiotic analysis of the selected images in an attempt

to reveal the historical construction and the representation of whiteness and the

myth of whiteness. The study will then turn to contemporary images and their

construction in terms of a counter-myth, or a “remythologisation” of whiteness

(Reid 2012:45,59). The images will be selected on the basis of their content: the

study will focus exclusively on the representations of white Afrikaans men, women

and children. As mentioned previously, I will attempt to define different periodic

categories in which each set of representations fall based on the political milieu.

The preliminary categories are:

1. 1910-1948: Union of South Africa – National Party

2. 1948-1976: National Party – Sharpeville Massacre – Soweto Uprising

3. 1976-1994: Soweto Uprising – Unbanning the ANC and release of Mandela –

democratic elections

4. 1994-present day: Democracy – new myth of Afrikaner whiteness/identity

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6.1 Semiology

Semiotics can be considered a qualitative method of research, and is concerned

with how images make meaning; that is, semiotics is not simply a descriptive

method, and is concerned with how images interact with the broader social context

within which images are received and understood (Rose 2012:106-107).

Mainstream semiology deals with the site of the image itself, with less concern for

the site of the audiencing (Rose 2012:112). Its focus is the compositional modality,

but also has concerns based within the social modality. The compositional modality

refers to the specific material qualities of an image or visual subject (Rose

2012:147). This study will employ mainstream semiology for its focus on the

composition of the image and the ideologies at work within the images as they

relate to broader systems of meaning.

Thus, this study will make a purposive selection of images from various time

periods in order to determine the changing understanding of whiteness in South

Africa. A detailed description of the selected image set will allow this study to focus

on formalist interpretations of aspects such as the mise-en-scène and the

composition of the images in order to reveal the construction of the myths and

counter-myths of Afrikaans whiteness and identity. This study will be limited to

photographic images, but will make superficial mention of music videos and

contemporary films in order to strengthen the image of the contemporary

conceptions/identities of Afrikaans whiteness. Whiteness studies in a South African

context will be used to frame the semiotic investigation into images.

7. Preliminary outline of chapters

Chapter One: Introduction

1.1 Background and aims of the study

1.2 Literature review

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1.3 Theoretical framework and research methodology

1.4 Overview of chapters

Chapter Two: Whiteness

2.1 Historical framework and in-depth analysis of literature

2.2 The construction of whiteness informed by Richard Dyer 2.2.1 Construction of whiteness in terms of gender, age and class

2.3 Whiteness studies in South Africa

Chapter Three: Analysis of images

3.1 Overview of photography theory

3.2 Delineation of categories

3.2.1 1910 - 1948 3.2.2 1948 - 1976 3.2.3 1976 - 1994 3.2.4 1994 - present

3.3 Analysis of selected images using semiotics

Chapter Four: Conclusion

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SOURCES CONSULTED

Alberts, C. 2013. Negotiating Afrikaner whiteness during family conversations in a rural Eastern Cape context: Enacting hybrid identities in post-apartheid South Africa. Paper presented at WHITEWASH1: Negotiating whiteness in 21st century South Africa, 19-20 March, University of Johannesburg. Amison, P. 2012. 1000 Words: The Descent into the Asylum – Roger Ballen’s new works. [O]. Available: http://www.rogerballen.com/articles/the-descent-into-the-asylum Accessed 15 January 2013. Angelucci, F. 2012. South African Photography Today: A Shattered Glass Sphere. [O]. Available: http://www.africultures.com/php/?nav=article&no=10970 Accessed 1 July 2013. Åsdam, Knut. 1996. Heterotopia – Art, pornography and cemeteries. [O]. Available: http://knutasdam.net/images/uploads/text/heterotopia_k_asdam.pdf Accessed 2 April 2013. Ballen, R. ([email protected]). 2012/09/05.I Fink U Freeky. Email to D Barnard ([email protected]). Accessed 2012/09/05. Ballantine, C. 2012. Re-thinking ‟whiteness‟? Identity, change and „white‟ popular music in post-apartheid South Africa. Popular Music 23(2):105-131. Balshaw, M. 1998. Reviews. Textual Practice 12(12):402-407. Barthes, R. 1980. La Chambre Claire. France: Editions du Seuil. Barthes, R. 1981. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. Translated by R Howard. New York: Hill and Wang.

Bazin, A. 1958. Qu'est-ce que le cinéma? Paris: Les Éditions du CERF. Bazin, A. 1960. The Ontology of the Photographic Image. Translated by Hugh Gray. Film Quarterly 13(4):4-9.

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